4 July 2012, Geneva, Switzerland - UNITAR celebrates together with CERN the accomplishment of decades of hard work by hundreds of scientists and technical experts as CERN Director-General Rolf Heuer announced on 4 July 2012 in a historical moment, already compared to the first human on the Moon, the discovery of a “Higgs-like” boson particle. The discovery was made by two experiments run by the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). At a seminar held at CERN today, the ATLAS and CMS experiments presented their latest preliminary results in the search for the long sought Higgs particle. Both experiments observe a new particle whose behaviour and mass are consistent with the Higgs boson.

Although some scientific data resulting from research in 2012 are still to be analysed fully, Professor Rolf Heuer said: "As a layman I would now say I think we have it. We have a discovery - we have observed a new particle consistent with a Higgs boson. But which one? That remains open.” He also said: "It is a historic milestone but it is only the beginning."

Director-General Heuer and UNITAR Executive Director Carlos Lopes had been in a meeting a few weeks earlier at CERN on the occasion of the renewal of the UNITAR-CERN agreement for the hosting of UNOSAT on the CERN campus. For years CERN has hosted and supported the technology and research intensive UNITAR operational satellite applications programme. UNOSAT experts enjoy the support of the CERN IT Division. In addition CERN and UNITAR are also collaborating to groundbreaking research in the area of cyberscience and computing and have established together with the University of Geneva the Citizen Cyberscience Centre.

The entire UNITAR staff and the UNOSAT Team express their warmest congratulations to CERN colleagues.

Images courtesy of CERN.
Above: simulation of a black hole by the ATLAS experiment.
Below: Professor Heuer (left) and Dr. Lopes together at CERN.